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University of Maryland, College Park

Ph.D. Dissertation & Master's Thesis Formatting Guidelines

Official layout specifications, binding margins, and document formatting requirements.

Governing Body: The Graduate School Office of Student Services (MD, US)

Degree Scope:🎓 Ph.D. / Doctoralℹī¸ Master's / M.Tech. format requires departmental / DPGC confirmation unless a central handbook is cited
Official Handbook:
UMD Graduate School Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Style Guide
View Official Handbook ↗
Paper Dimensions
Letter (8.5 in × 11.0 in)
Binding Margins
1 in Left / 1 in Right
Standard Typography
Times New Roman (12pt)
Line Spacing
Double Spaced (2.0x)

1. Page Setup & Geometry

Page dimensions, binding margins, and print/digital alignments

Letter
Top: 1 in
Binding: 1 in
[Header]Page 1
[Front matter]
Right: 1 in
Bottom: 1 in
Left (Binding Gutter)
1in(2.54 cm)
Right Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Top Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Bottom Margin
1in(2.54 cm)
Margin Specification: 1.0 in on all sides (1.5 in left margin recommended if printing/binding).

2. Typography & Spacing Hierarchy

Font selections, heading styles, line spacing, and paragraph indentation

Times New Roman
Body Font
Times New Roman
Font Size
12pt
Line Spacing
Double Spaced (2.0x)
Paragraph Indent
0.5 in
Approved Typefaces:Times New RomanArialCalibri
Spacing Exceptions: Single-space block quotes, footnotes, tables, and bibliography items.

3. Technical & Archival Compliance

ETD ProQuest repository requirements, table spanning, and vector DPI rules

ETD / ProQuest Ready
Tables Layout

Table captions: above.

Figures & Graphics

Figure captions: below. Colour photography minimum 300 DPI.

Math & Formulae

Right-aligned equation numbers (chapter.seq). Preserves native MathML and Word equation blocks.

Archival Preservation

Library ETD guideline: PDF/A-1b (Note: ScholarSpec formats submission-ready Word .docx documents; export to PDF/A upon final committee approval).

4. Preliminary Pages Checklist & Order

Strict graduate school ordering, title page numbering suppression, and Roman pagination

Mandatory Sequence
  1. 1
    Title PageMandatory
    Pagination: suppressed counted
  2. 2
    AbstractMandatory
    Pagination: roman visible
  3. 3
    Table of ContentsMandatory
    Pagination: roman visible

6. Academic Integrity, Similarity & AI Policy

Plagiarism threshold, similarity checking software, and Generative AI disclosure rules

Policy & Disclosure
Generative AI Policy
Disclosure Statement Required

Graduate School academic integrity policies prohibit uncredited text generation and hallucinated citations.

Chapter Opening & Print Setup

Chapter start placement, top margin drops, single vs double-sided print, and paper weight

Layout
Printing Format
Single-Sided

8. Institutional & Departmental Policies

Minimum 12 semester hours of doctoral dissertation research credits (899) required.
Advancement to candidacy required within five years of admission.
Dissertation Examining Committee must include minimum five members, at least three Full Members.
Dean's Representative required (tenured, different tenure home, may be non-voting).
Institutional Policy: Doctoral candidates automatically registered for 6 credits of Doctoral Dissertation Research (899) per semester.
Institutional Policy: IRB approval required for human subject research prior to initiation.
Institutional Policy: Animal use protocols and hazardous material approvals required prior to dissertation-related research.

Notice a discrepancy in this 2026 handbook?

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  • Verified 2026-10-13 against primary sources: University of Maryland Graduate Catalog and Graduate School ETD guidelines require 1.0 in margins and double spacing; header and footer margins are not specified and are set to null.
  • 1.0 in margins on all sides (1.5 in left margin for binding).
  • Times New Roman 12 pt, double-spaced body text.
  • Continuous pagination with lowercase Roman front matter and Arabic body starting at 1.